CINCINNATI — More details and fallout of Tommy Pham’s slap heard ’round the baseball world emerged Saturday in the lead up to the Giants’ second game here at Great American Ballpark.
While addressing his confrontation with Joc Pederson for the first time, Pham broke the news of his three-game suspension, explained why he resorted to physical violence and expressed little remorse. Shortly after he finished speaking with reporters in the Reds clubhouse — where the Bay Area News Group was the only San Francisco media to speak with Pham — MLB made official Pham’s suspension, ruling him out for the remainder of the series.
“I slapped Joc. He said some (stuff) I don’t condone. I had to address it,” Pham said, adding that Pederson’s “disrespectful” comments had do to with his former team, the San Diego Padres. “I told him I didn’t forget about that (stuff) and walked right up and slapped him.”
While Pederson was walking barefoot in the outfield grass with mental health coach Harvey Martin — a pregame ritual called “grounding” that Pederson participates in — Pham approached him and delivered a hard, open-handed slap across his left cheek.
Video of the incident emerged Saturday morning, showing the severity of the slap.
Giants manager Gabe Kapler commended Pederson’s response by not retaliating.
“Yesterday we were mostly concerned about Joc and making sure he was all right mentally through all this,” Kapler said. “We always talk about being even and non-reactionary. I don’t think anybody exemplified that better than Joc did yesterday.”
Pederson addressed the incident after the game Friday night, explaining that Pham accused him of cheating in the fantasy league by stashing players on the injured reserve and that “there’s not much more to it.”
“There was some (expletive) that went on in fantasy, but what he forgot to tell you guys, too, is he said some disrespectful (expletive) in a text message,” Pham said. “I called him out on it.”
Approached by reporters with Pham’s comments Saturday, Pederson declined an interview request.
Pham also said he was “face to face” with Giants pitching coach Andrew Bailey, who was one of the first Giants to sprint toward the scene after Pham slapped Pederson. Pham initially approached Pederson and Martin with Reds outfielder Albert Almora Jr., but the situation escalated to include upward of 30 players and coaches from both teams.
Pham said that he was “hearing rumors that their pitching coach isn’t happy … (and) now he wants to go behind my back.”
In an interview with the Bay Area News Group, Bailey confirmed he was one of the first to reach Pederson and Pham but was confused by the accusations leveled by Pham.
“Obviously you’re concerned for Joc and trying to diffuse the situation. I don’t really think there was anything other than that,” Bailey said. “I don’t know Tommy.”
What was clear after speaking with both players was that a high-stakes fantasy football league was at the center of the disagreement. The league involved many current and former San Diego Padres, the team about which Pham said Pederson made comments in the group chat that were out of line.
While Pederson limited his explanation to the a dispute over how he used the injured reserve, pointing to Pham’s ownership of 49ers oft-injured running back Jeff Wilson as an example, Pham indicated he resorted to physical violence because of the amount of money involved.
Pham earned $8.9 million in 2021 and signed a $7.5 million contract for 2022. Pederson earned $2.5 million last season and signed a $6 million contract this year with the Giants. It’s not unusual for professional athletes to gamble substantial sums of money on activities such as fantasy sports, but rarely does it escalate like it did Friday.
“We’ve got too much money on the line,” Pham said. “I look at it like, there’s a code. If you’re (messing) with my money, you’re going to say some disrespectful (stuff), there’s a code to this. … This was strictly about winning some money, gambling. … There’s a lot of money on the line. I’m a big dog in Vegas. I’m a high roller at many casinos. … If you lost, you had to pay double, so I looked at it like he was (messing) with my money, along with the disrespect.”
Pham declined to expand on the comments Pederson made in the text chain, saying “It wasn’t racist. It was some (stuff) that you just don’t say. … I told him in the text thread right away, ‘I’m not cool enough with you to be talking like this.' ”
Pham was a late scratch from the Reds’ lineup Friday night as MLB launched its investigation. Less than 24 hours later, Saturday morning, MLB announced Pham’s three-game suspension for “inappropriate conduct.”
While Pederson surely did not seem to anticipate the incident occurring, he expressed regret that it may have played a factor in the Giants’ sloppy 5-1 loss to the Reds.
“It was a weird interaction. Unfortunate. You show up here, and it’s hard to lock back in. It was a tough day,” Pederson said on Friday. “We’re scuffling a little bit, so that just makes things worse, and this is just an added distraction. You want to eliminate those as much as possible because this game’s so hard. Like I said, we lost.
“It feels like what happened was unfortunate, but it’s still a big distraction to other guys around here. We didn’t play a good game tonight. If I had something to do with that, being a distraction, that makes me feel really bad because I’m here to help this team win, not be a distraction.”
Pham said he is not appealing the suspension, saying that, “It sounds like if I appeal, it will only get worse,” meaning that he won’t face the Giants at all this series in Cincinnati. He could, however, be on the field when the Reds travel to San Francisco for a three-game series from June 24-26.
